Here’s where things stand with my attempt to return to Afghanistan.
Pledges Doing OK
So far, support has been impressive.48 backers have put up a total of $4,305 to fund my travel expenses to return to Afghanistan this year to conduct independent comics and prose journalism. However, I need a total of $25,000 to get started–I estimate minimum travel expenses of $35,000, of which I will spend $10,000 personally. (It’s all I have.) Obviously, more pledges need to come in. If I fall short of the $25,000, I don’t get a penny–and I don’t go to Afghanistan.
Focus
The focus of this trip and the journalism resulting from it will be upon the people of Afghanistan, their lives, how things have changed for them (or not) since the US occupation began in 2001. I want to be their mouthpiece, to let them tell THEIR stories.
This was not the case in 2001, when I put my impressions and experiences front and center. Here I’ll be trying to channel my inner Joe Sacco.
Publisher Interest
NBM, the publisher of “To Afghanistan Back”, “Silk Road to Ruin” and my graphic novels, has committed to publishing a book resulting from this next trip. So has La Boite a Bulles, the French publisher which did the above two books in France. We’re waiting to hear back from the Italian publisher which inexplicably titled “Silk Road” as “Stan Trek” in Italy. Whatever.
Other publishers have also expressed interest.
The point is, there’s no doubt that there will be a book and that it will be well distributed.
Newspaper Interest
The Los Angeles Times will publish cartoons filed from Afghanistan.
Funny Times magazine has committed to publishing essays filed from Afghanistan.
Itinerary
I’m currently concentrating on travel to three areas:
Taloqan-Khanabad-Kunduz, in the north near the Uzbek and Tajik borders. This is where I went in 2001. Although now under complete control of the neo-Taliban, I must go visit my fixer and his family. I will bring them money and supplies and check on them. If possible, I will try to provide assistance to him to leave the country since he may have been marked for having assisted Americans. This will be an opportunity to see how a specific area has changed since 2001.
Herat and environs, in the northwest near Iran and Turkmenistan. The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project is under construction. Although I wrote about it (see my book “Gas War”) there has been no follow-up by the mainstream press. I’ll get the photos and stories about the construction so that it can no longer be ignored.
The southwestern deserts, along the border with eastern Iran. The international Western media never travels to this, the most remote area in Afghanistan. For that reason alone I want to find out: what’s going on there? Is the insurgency spreading, or have these Afghans been left unaffected by the ongoing war?
